- By: Yasmine Ahmed | Director, United Kingdom
- By: Laetitia Bader | Director, Horn of Africa
- Photo: Sudanese refugees get off a truck loaded with families arriving at a transit centre for refugees in Renk, South Sudan, on February 13, 2024. © 2024 LUIS TATO/AFP via Getty Images
As the UK convenes an international gathering on Sudan today, the stakes couldn’t be higher for civilians there. It is essential for the conference to deliver concrete actions designed to stop unfolding atrocities in Darfur and rally high-level support for protecting civilians.
As you read this, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which are fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), are on a rampage in Sudan’s North Darfur, particularly in the city of El Fasher and in Zamzam camp, which hosts an estimated half a million displaced people. Since Friday, the forces have reportedly killed dozens of civilians, including nine aid workers and women volunteers at a soup kitchen, and over 24 children.
Many, if not most, of the camp’s displaced civilians are being displaced again. Sudan now has the biggest displacement crisis in the world. It’s the only country where famine is unfolding.
This conflict broke out two years ago in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. Once a buzzing metropolis, the city has been ravaged.
Conduct by the warring parties has been synonymous with atrocities. The RSF have killed civilians on a wide scale, including during an ethnic cleansing campaign against non-Arab communities in Darfur. They have gang raped women and girls and subjected them to sexual slavery.
Both the RSF and the SAF have executed detainees, often posting videos on social media. Both parties have deliberately stopped food and medical aid. Massive aid cuts, notably by the US, have compounded the suffering, forcing resilient local Sudanese responders running many soup kitchens to stop.
Despite all this, new weapons continue to flow into the hands of fighters, including some produced in the United Arab Emirates and China.
What is happening now is a disaster foretold. Last June, the UK had managed to rally the UN Security Council to condemn the then-start of the assault on El Fasher. But the council did not react. The consequences are now chillingly clear.
Foreign Minister David Lammy himself last year described the scale of the suffering as “frankly hard to comprehend.”
The UK needs to use the London conference to rally global action to prevent more atrocities, starting with the creation of a coalition of states willing to work urgently to protect civilians. It also needs to move ahead with sanctions against commanders. Forgetting Sudan would be “unforgivable,” Lammy said. Just as unforgivable would be a failure to act.
